Armchair_Politician wrote on Jun 30
th, 2025 at 8:59am:
Albanese and the Labor Party as a whole are a joke when it comes to the ADF. At this point, we'd struggle to defend the Top End against the Indonesians, to say nothing of China. We used to have two aircraft carrier strike groups. Now we have a floating helicopter pad that could have and should have been upgraded to take the F-35B. Kevin Rudd was PM then and his government oversaw this decision. What they should've done instead was go to the Americans for an America-class amphibious assault ship, as they can do everything our LHD's can do, plus embark a squadron of fighter jets. They also have an impressive array of self-defence weapons, something our LHD's lack entirely.
The America class LHDs cost:
US$10.094 billion – initial program cost for 3 ships ($3.4B/unit[1] FY15)
65 officers, 994 enlisted
1,687 Marines
The Canberra Class LHDs cost:
A$3.1 billion (2007) for two units
A$1.55 billion (2007) per unit
358 personnel; 293 RAN, 62 Australian Army, 3 RAAF
Troops 1,046 standard/1,600 overload
So, are you prepared to pay three times as much for an America class? Of course I'm not costing in the massive cost of it's airwing and it's weapon systems. You would require another 10 billion dollars for it's airwing alone and that is just for it's helicopters, let alone it's strike aircraft. Then you have the personnel costs, for a crew three times the size of the Canberra's. Seems we would need to increase taxes considerably. Are you prepared for the moans from your Liberal Party shills? Tsk, tsk, tsk...